Finished with H2H quilts! And 2 more Japanese Fans.............

"What you really want for yourself is always trying to break through, just as a cooling breeze flows through an open window on a hot day. Your part is to open the windows of your mind."-- Vernon Howard

I was finally able to get the last of my Hands to Help charity quilts finished this morning!  The "Bingo" quilt is ready to go off to Happy Chemo with it's traveling partner "Thomas the Train".........

 I was not real happy with the fast quilting job I did on Bingo.  The back had some pleats in places from the quilting but the front looks great and I think probably the back will look really good from a moving train....(grin)......

 I was really pleased with how Thomas turned out.....the binding was easy and I love how well the fabric for the backing matches...........

They are both off to Happy Chemo today!

I also finished a couple more "in the hoop" Japanese fans "ala Ida"..........As I had explained on my last post....the pattern for the in the hoop fans ended up too small for my liking so I adapted the pattern a bit then finished with my regular sewing machine in order to make them bigger.  Here are the latest......

So now I am off to mail the H2H charity quilts........I missed the linky, which closed yesterday but please go to Sarahs page at Confessions of a Fabric Addict to see what many participants have made!

Click Here to Go there!

Picking but not Grinning...........and some fun with fans.............

"You can be drinking the wine today and picking the grapes tomorrow" --Jonathan Tucker



I spent more time the last two days trying to  do some free-motion quilting on the little Thomas Train charity quilt I'm working on for H2H......and spent a lot more time with my seam ripper doing a lot of picking instead......
for some reason my free motion foot just didn't want to cooperate......if it wasn't breaking the top thread it was having problems not pulling the stitches taut on the back side!  I even tried changing machines from my Singer to my old trusty Rockford but no luck.  I hadn't used my Rockford in so many years that it was all but seized up and needed oiling and "fuzz brushing" and even all that cleaning didn't make the FMQ any easier............I changed needles, re-threaded and still I had to pick out much of the quilting I did. 
Finally I decided to just order a new foot and see if that helps............I ordered the genuine Singer FMQ foot so it should be here next week and I'll try again....anyway here is the work in progress....I showed you the front on my last post....here is the back. (a little blurry)

I found a darling free train design for my embroidery machine at Thomas Sewing Center and added some "Choo-Choo" lettering together with a label...the FMQ is 3/4s of the way done so hopefully I can finish it off next week..........

I did get to play a little with my new Embroidery Machine.  I had purchased a Japanese Fan In-the-loop pattern that turned out rather small by the time I was finished..........you can see by the measurement on the cutting mat that it is barely 3x7 inches....it can maybe help fan a doll with hot flashes.......lol

But I was determined that I would make it work  for a real person so I used another of the beautiful Japanese patterns in the pattern bundle and then added my own design to make it a usable size.......7x10 inches! 

Here you can see the difference......

So now what did Mr. Tucker say about drinking wine today??? Don't mind if I do!   Cheers!